Blame and fear: Roma in the UK in a changing Europe

Abstract

Anti-Gypsyism is not a new phenomenon. For centuries Roma have been blamed and feared; their social identities constructed to fulfil a function to be the visible ‘other’. The Brexit debate offered fertile, but well-trodden, ground for negative discourse. Gypsies, Travellers and Roma (GTR) embodied three key gripping anti-EU arguments: sovereignty of policy making, immigration control and potential cost savings of withdrawing from the EU. The research shows the felt hostility by GTR and suggests that the successful performance of the social construction of Roma in the debate was vital to the hegemonic, anti-EU, fear and blame discourse of Brexit.